Apple has just released the 10.4.11 update for Mac OS X Tiger, which has two interesting tidbits. First of all, it lists “Improves compatibility when using OpenType fonts in QuarkExpress.” I would be really interested in knowing more about exactly what has changed here. Unfortunately, given how tight-lipped Apple usually is about these types of things, I doubt I’ll find out.

The second item pertains to Safari 3. Starting with this update, Safari 3 will be the default browser. Now, this is really great, but it introduces some problems with my workflow. If I install this update, how am I going to be able to continue to test my designs in Safari 2.x?

Automatically activate fonts as you need them. When an application requests an installed font thatâ€™s currently disabled, Leopard activates that font and keeps it active until the requesting application quits.

FontExplorer X has some really funky behavior when it comes to users with networked home directories. Normally, the application files for FontExplorer are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Linotype/FontExplorer X/. Everything works fine and dandy…until a user with a networked home directory tries to open in.

When a user with a networked home folder tries to open the FontExplorer X, the file ~/Library/Application Support/Linotype/FontExplorer X/FontDatabase.db is made into an alias. Note that this is a rather important file. It appears to store the references to all of your fonts (not the fonts themselves, just the references). The alias points to a newly created FontDatabase.db file in /Users/Shared/Linotype/FontExplorer X/_/, where is the username of the current user and is the user id of the current user.

The end result of this behavior, is that FontExplorer behaves as if it’s the first time FontExplorer X has been opened, every time someone uses it. Of course, in a lab type environment this behavior is completely unacceptable.

Below are login/logout scripts that I wrote to circumvent this behavior. You can download the scripts and a readme.txt file here:

Update: I should point out here that this particular script has only been tested on OS X 10.4 (Tiger). It will work on 10.3, but the way that you set up the login hook is slightly different than what I describe below. I’m also using FEX 1.2.2 for this script and it should be noted that the way FEX stores it’s database changed slightly in this version. Previous versions of FEX should work with this script using only a small tweaking. As I have not gotten my hands on a Leopard yet, I have no idea if this will work with them. (added 11/8/2007)

Update #2: This script is still working like a charm using OS X 10.5.4 and FEX 1.2.3. (added 8/12/2008)

Update #3: This script still works using OS X 10.6 and FEX 1.2.3. (added 2/7/2011)

The Setup

Start by setting up FEX on a test computer. Set all the preferences as you want them and make sure the fonts are imported into appropriate sets.

Font Library: Make a copy of your entire font library and note the location it’s stored in. I use /Users/Shared/Font Explorer X/ so that everybody has access to it.

FEX plist: make a copy of the FEX plist file located in /Users//Library/Preferences/com.linotype.FontExploereX.plist

Application Support Files: Make a copy of the Linotype application support folder located in /Users//Library/Application Support/

A copy of each of these must reside on the client computer (the one your running the login script on).

* Make sure that the entire font library is in the same location on the client computer as it was in the test machine (/Users/Shared/ in my case).
* Copy the FEX plist and Linotype folder to a privileged location on the client computer. It doesn’t matter where they are, we just don’t want normal users to be able to modify them. I use an admin’s document folder.’
6. Change the $backupprefs and $backupdb variables in login.sh to the correct locations. They should be lines 11 and 14.

Installation

Copy login.sh and logout.shto client computers. Make sure that you limit access to the files. They will be run as root, so these permissions will work:

Logout

#!/bin/sh # Get username of current user username=`cat /Users/.username` ### Start of Script ### # get the user id of current user userid=`su - $username -c "/usr/bin/id -u"` # set a variable for the FontExplorer folder in the format of _ userfolder=${username}_${userid} # get the path to the networked home directory of user userhome=`su - $username -c "/usr/bin/id -P | cut -f9 -d:"` # Remove the sym link version of FontDatabase.db in user's home rm "$userhome/Library/Application Support/Linotype/FontExplorer X/FontDatabase.db" # Copy version of FontDatabase.db from /Users/Shared/ back to user's home cp "/Users/Shared/Linotype/FontExplorer X/$userfolder/FontDatabase.db" "$userhome/Library/Application Support/Linotype/FontExplorer X/FontDatabase.db" # Make sure ownership is correct chown -R $username:$username "$userhome/Library/Application Support/Linotype/" # Remove all of the user's Linotype directories from the /Users/Shared/ directory rm -R /Users/Shared/Linotype

Honestly, this is probably one of the first really good things that I’ve heard about Office 2008 for Macs. The MacBU team has just announced on Mac Mojo that the Office update will now come in a package file and use Apple’s Installer.

I am happy to announce that Office 2008 for Mac will use the Apple-recommended Apple Installer technology for Office 2008 installation. This means that the data that Office installs will ship on the disc in .pkg format, installs will work well with Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) and will be Applescript-able. Once installed, the user has the freedom to move the Office folder to a different location on the system and Office will run from there. I hope that this will make Office for Mac configuration/deployment easier for IT admins.

You can read more about installers and Apple’s recommendations for them on Apple Developer Connection . Being able to easily deploy Office through ARD is great news for IT people.

My favorite piece of news though is about fonts (emphasis added):

In addition to the change to the Apple Installer, weâ€™ve provided IT admins greater ability to customize their deployment with optional font installations.

The current practice for Office on Macs is to automatically copy a gazillion Microsoft True Type fonts into a user’s font directory the first time they open an Office application. This behavior is truly obnoxious, especially if you already have a ton of fonts that you are trying to manage. It’s also wrong. If those fonts are actually needed for everybody for that application, they should really be put into /Library/Fonts/ at the time of the installation.

I don’t have a lot of good things to say about Microsoft these days, but I am at least happy that their Mac team is taking steps to create a better “Mac Application.”